Jane Lewis Healthcare :: Help & Advice
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CV advice & templates
You’ve identified your dream job, found a vacancy and are about to submit an application. So how do you go about putting together a CV which will guarantee you an interview?
Some positions are oversubscribed, and some are very oversubscribed, so help us to help you. Your priority is to put together a document which rapidly communicates your suitability for the role — do this well, and a potential employer will be more likely to call you for an interview ahead of others. It sounds simple, but most people forget at least one of the five crucial elements for a killer CV. Make sure yours isn’t one of them!
Proof read, double-check, and triple-check for errors
Yes, it’s an obvious point, but you would be amazed how many CVs employers receive with typos and spelling mistakes. According to a nationwide survey of recruitment professionals carried out by the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, 47% said out of all the CVs they received, 50% contained grammatical errors, with the worst offenders in the 21 to 25-year-old age group. For an HR director with a mountain of CVs to work through, even one small error is a welcome reason to file an application in the pile marked 'dustbin'.
Beware of the following common mistakes:
recieve
sentance
correspondance
practice/ to practise (incorrect usage)
definately
Febuary
advice/to advise (incorrect usage)
could of, should of etc
it's / its (incorrect usage)
their / there / they're (incorrect usage)
alot of...
patients - i.e. 'Thank you for your patients'
Keep it short, short, short
Almost every employer we speak to begged candidates to keep their CV’s to the point. And when you have lots of them to plough through, less is more. You might feel a few pages isn’t enough to fit in all your experience but you’re demonstrating your ability to edit as well as showcase by being concise.
“The perfect CV should be ideally two pages long, three is acceptable if one has lots of years experience. But when writing a CV remember you are selling yourself on paper so keep it short, relevant and as interesting as possible.”
Nick Hodson MD Jane Lewis Healthcare
Honesty is the best policy
It is tempting to massage details to fit a role, and there’s nothing wrong with editing your experience to offer the most relevance to a recruiter. But when it comes to outright mistruths about qualifications or past experience, don’t be tempted.
“If you lie in your CV you will eventually get caught out - employers are checking information such as exam results and qualifications more thoroughly now.”
Becky Garnett Buchma HR Director Jane Lewis
Stand-out from the crowd
Use colour and different fonts very selectively, too much colour will have the wrong effect making potential employers think you’ve employed your 13 year old daughter ‘jazz up’ your CV, but a good layout and use of bulletpoints and colour (even if only shades of grey) makes you look individual.
Tailor to fit
Potential employers often imagine themselves to be objective, but they can actually be incredibly subjective when interviewing. So, while one person believes a personal summary including hobbies and interests gives employers a flavour of your personality, another thinks personal summaries are "white noise” which no-one ever reads.
You can’t be expected to know the unique preferences of an employer in advance but as much research as possible should help you gain an idea of company outlook. A CV should be rewritten to suit every position you apply for. And never send an identikit version to multiple employers by email. People really object to being spammed by cut and paste CVs.
Of course we will advise you how relevant your CV is to the position you are applying for, we often have multiple versions of the same persons CV ready to be sent out o different organizations, the content doesn’t change (we don’t tell fibs) but the layout and length of the CV does.
We recommend you take advantage of our free CV review and when you're ready why don't you email your CV to us at info@janelewis.co.uk
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